This film from 1939 is usually considered the beginning of realism in Egyptian cinema. The attention given to the hara, the popular neighborhood, and the social conditions prevalent in it, as well as to issues of economic hardship, marked a first in Egyptian cinema. The film poses education as the means of social mobility and class reconciliation in the turbulent and economically polarized thirties. Muhammad, son of a barber, is educated after extreme sacrifice by his parents. As he awaits a government job he marries his neighborhood sweetheart. She soon dons western clothes-a sign of social mobility-and when Muhammad encounters economic problems, leaves him to marry the rich neighborhood butcher. However, all is resolved in a happy ending. Some critics consider that the film compromised its realism by having salvation come at the hands of an aristocrat. Anwar Wagdi plays the upper-class fop against whom the hero is contrasted.-Alia Arasoughly